The Day That Nobody Died
by M. Christine Armstrong
Summary: When Roy saves the life of Ali, a young Ishvalan boy, the child refuses to leave Roy's side until the life-debt he owes the Amestrian general is repaid. What starts as an annoyance for Roy and as a duty for Ali gradually changes as the two face the challenges of the post-Promised Day world together - and find something in each other that neither knew they were looking for.
1. Chapter 1

_Fullmetal Alchemist is the property of Hiromu Arakawa._

_Reader discretion is advised._

* * *

**Part I**

**The Sands of Ishval**

April 13, 1919

Messa, Southeastern Ishval

The food in Messa's hospital tasted like sawdust and had a texture like frog skin, but it was all there was. There was no money to pay for better food; the doctors spent it all on medical supplies, and the black market dealers were dishonest and had steep prices. The good doctors tried to avoid buying from the black market, but the fact of the matter was that supplies were so scarce that the black market was their only option.

"Do not despair," the doctors said. "The Amestrian restoration will be here soon, but until then, we must be patient and calm. After all, Ishval was not built in a day."

I'd heard plenty about the Amestrians and how they'd spent the past four years re-building Ishval from the ground up. Story and rumor held that the Amestrians came in loaded with food, medicine, water and seeds for planting, handing it all out to the Ishvalan people. I'd also heard that they were just trying to get us all in one spot so that they could get rid of us all in one fell swoop, but my seven-year-old self believed the doctors. The Amestrians have come to help us, I told myself, they will be here soon, they will make all the hurts go away and Ishval will be rich again.

I believed that. I _had _to believe that.

I finished what little dinner I had and returned the plate and fork to the cook, thanking her. As I walked toward the exit, I whistled, and a small, big-eared, wiry-haired dog with brown and silver spots trotted up to me and walked with me out of the hospital's cafeteria.

"Good girl, Khadija," I said. My companion sneezed in response.

The hospital was built entirely out of concrete that was full of bubbles, cracks, good-sized stones, and the occasional piece of glass; the floor was so bumpy and uneven that it was a small miracle if you didn't trip at least once while crossing it. The railings on the stairways were caked with enough rust to leave a reddish-orange stain on your palm for a week. The few electric lights that worked cast a dim, weak glow that provided more shadow than light, and the animal-fat candles were no stronger. There were no doors, only threadbare curtains that continuously sprouted holes, no matter how many times they were patched. Worst of all, however, was the smell.

Any man or woman who ever had the misfortune of being in an Ishvalan hospital during that time never complained of a bad smell ever again, for to say that the places reeked would be high praise. Always the nose was under assault from innumerable foul stinks: burning animal fat, the open and rarely cleaned privies, the oily smoke from the cookhouse, the stagnating water in the barrels, and always – _always _– the iron odor of blood and the omnipresent and indescribable smell of rotting flesh, filtering in from the makeshift graveyard in the hospital's yard.

This was the Ishval I was born in.

My name on April 13, 1919 was Ali Lior Sakar. I was four months from turning eight years old.

My mother had been dying for over a year.

Every day since she'd been admitted to the hospital I'd begged her to hold on. _Just a little longer, _I'd tell her, _just hold on a little longer. The Amestrians will be here soon, they'll make you better, Mother. Just hold on._ No matter how many times I was told that the afterlife was a place without suffering or misery, I had no desire for Mother to go there. I knew she was sick, I knew she was in pain, but I didn't care; Mother and Kadija were all I had left. The rest of my family was dead.

…Alright, that was a lie. _Most _of the rest of my family was dead.

Mother heard me come into her room and turned her head towards me, a happy but tired smile on her face.

"Hello, Ali," she said. "How was dinner?"

"It was fine," I said. "How was yours?"

"Mother wasn't very hungry today, my dear. I didn't eat."

"Oh." I sat down on a splintery, rickety stool beside Mother's bed, and took her hand.

"Mother," I said.

"Yes?"

"When are Father and Rashid coming home? Soon?"

She shook her head. "I don't know, my dear. I honestly don't know."

_Please, let it be soon, _I prayed.

You see, when I was a baby, my father left on a long journey, taking only some supplies, his horse, and my twin brother, Rashid Gupta Sakar, and promising to return as soon as he could. The only things I had left of the two were a photograph of my brother and me with '1911' written on the back and a notebook that was full of elaborate circles and scribbled words. I couldn't understand the words very well, but I was fascinated by the circles. They were so beautifully drawn and so complex in their designs that it was difficult not to get caught up in the lines, the symbols, the shapes.

When I'd asked my mother about the notebook, all she'd been able to tell me was that my father had written in it a great deal. She didn't know that much about it; she'd never asked my father for details.

Our neighbor, Dr. Hussein, was more helpful.

"Your father was an alchemist," he said.

I was only five when he told me about this, and I had no idea what he was talking about. Dr. Hussein explained to me that alchemy was the science of understanding how the world is put together, so that a person could understand how to take apart something in the world and then put it back together. The circles in my father's notebook, he said, were an essential part of this.

"I think when he left us, he was going to the north to do more research on alchemy," Dr. Hussein said. "Why he would take a baby boy with him, and why he would disappear for so long, I do not know."

And there was the kicker. No one knew anything. No one had heard one word from Emir Muhammad Sakar in the seven years he'd been gone. Now Mother was dying, and God only knew where he and Rashid were, and I couldn't help but wonder:

_Why isn't he here? What could be so important that he'd leave his wife and one of his sons for so long? __Where__ is he?_

"Maybe they'll come in with the Amestrians," I said.

"Maybe they will, at that," she said. She smiled. "I wouldn't put it past your father to come riding in with the cavalry, smiling at us atop his horse in the middle of a platoon of Amestrian bluecoats, and yelling 'Talia, I'm home!' And Rashid! He'd be such a big boy by now."

"Like me, Mother?"

"Yes, Ali. Just like you." She closed her eyes. "It's such a shame I shall never get to see that sight."

At first, I didn't understand what she was saying. That didn't last long.

"Mother, you're going to be all right!" I said. "The Amestrians will be here soon; they have medicine and food and good doctors, they'll make you better. Besides, Father and Rashid aren't home yet! You can't leave before they come home; you just can't!"

This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. Not now.

Mother smiled and stroked my hand. "Oh Ali." She slipped her beaded pendant off over her head and placed it in my hand, pushing my fingers over it. "This is my last gift to you, my son. I'm sorry…" Her voice became soft. "I'm so sorry..."

Her eyes closed, and her hand fell onto her stomach.

"Mother?" She didn't respond.

"Mother?" She still didn't respond.

I felt something warm slip down my cheek. "Mother…?"


	2. Chapter 2

August 15, 1919

Messa, Southeastern Ishval

_I would oh-so-dearly love to kill the lying SOB that told me that Ishval is dry year-round. _

I trudged through the gritty, sandy mud that made up the streets of Messa, cursing that particular academy drill sergeant and double-cursing my own inability to remember Ishval's monsoon season. I thought Breda had thoroughly drummed it into my brain, goddamnit; how did I forget?

_Maybe it's all the rain, Roy. _I could almost hear my best friend's all-too-rational voice. _You always were useless in the rain, even when we were back at the academy._

A small smile wormed its way onto my face even as I fought back the lump that always formed in my throat whenever I thought about Maes. I could still picture him down to a T: military man; late twenties; black, spiky hair; glasses; big smile; always shoving pictures of his daughter into the faces of helpless passerby. It had been five years, and I still couldn't believe he was gone.

"You'd be proud, Hughes," I said. "I finally asked her, and you know what? She said yes."

Again, I could almost hear him. _About damn time, Roy! Grumman altered the fraternization rules four years ago; what took you?_ Here I would try to formulate some lame-ass excuse and he'd put a hand on my shoulder and smile. _I'm glad. Riza and you always had something good. I'm glad you two were able to get this far._

I fought the lump again, almost losing this time. Why couldn't Maes get here with me? He'd promised to be my best man, damnit; how could he die before then?

"It's not fair, Hughes," I said. "It's just not fair."

But then again, who ever said it had to be? If life was fair, Ishval would never have been destroyed, the Promised Day would never have happened, and I wouldn't be here getting wet sand in my boots. That's just the way it is.

I kept walking.

I was about three blocks away from base camp when a brown-and-silver mutt with ears the size of my hand and a body no bigger than a cat's jumped out of an alley and landed right in front of me; I had to back-step to avoid stepping on the thing. The mutt turned toward the sound of my footsteps and looked up at me, making eye contact. Then it eyed me up and down – sizing me up, I guess – and looked me in the eye again, tilting its head. I tilted my head in turn, giving the dog a classic _What're you looking at? _glare.

The two of us must have stood there for thirty seconds or so, just staring at each other, before the dog opened its mouth and let loose a string of rapid, high-pitched barks. I clapped my hands over my ears – the thing might have been small, but oh my God was it _loud _– and moved to go around the dog, but the little rat just stepped in front of my foot and kept at it. I tried to move in a different direction. The mutt got ahead of me again and kept barking. I turned around to see if I could backtrack to a different street and the same thing happened. I even took the jerky that I had in my pocket out and put it on the ground, but the mutt was having none of it. It continued its tirade, louder than before.

I gritted my teeth. I usually like dogs – in fact, I'd once gone on a rant about the wonderful qualities of canines while swinging my now-fiancée's dog in various circles – but this one was really, really getting on my nerves. Not to mention getting in my way.

What did this little son-of-a-bitch _want?_

I was so wrapped up in trying to get rid of the dog that I didn't notice that I wasn't the only human within ten miles until I heard a weak, wavering whistle. I started, and looked toward the source of the disturbance: the alleyway the mutt had come out of.

Standing just inside said alleyway was a small child; an Ishvalan boy roughly seven years old. His clothes were threadbare, infested with holes, and much too small, and the fabric was so wet and clung to him so tightly that I could count every rib he had on either side of his torso. Dirty, uneven, off-white hair was his head's only protection from the downpour, and under the dirt on his face his skin looked just this side of too pale. He held a half-rotted sack in his shaking hands.

I cocked my head to one side. What was this kid doing out here in the rain?

"Ka-Kadija," the kid said, "you shou-shouldn't b-b-bother people like that; you-you know better." He pointed at the ground in front of his feet. "C-c-c-co-come here."

The mutt – Kadija – looked over at its master and stopped barking, but refused to move. Instead, it made eye contact with me again and started making that plaintive whimpering noise that Black Hayate was prone to making when Riza and I locked him out of our bedroom, little attention hog that he was. This dog, however, didn't look like it was looking for affection.

I narrowed my eyes. _What are you trying to tell me?_

"S-s-see, Kadija-ja, you're-re making-ing him ma-ma-mad." The kid could barely talk through his chattering teeth. "Co-c-come he-HACHOO!"

The kid was now covered in snot.

I looked over at the dog – Kadija – who'd stopped making noises but was still looking at me. It looked over at its small, sickly master, then back at me. It cocked its head.

_Is that what you want?_

I pulled out a handkerchief that was still somewhat dry and moved towards the kid. He made a startled noise and began to back away, but I grabbed his arm and started to wipe his face. Or at least I _tried _to wipe his face; he kept whimpering and struggling against my grip.

"Oh for the love of…I'm not going to hurt you; hold still!"

The kid cringed, and he looked like he was going to cry.

_Some bedside manner _you've _got, Mustang, _I heard a familiar voice say. This one, however, wasn't Hughes; it was the high and usually bitingly sarcastic voice of a kid whose holier-than-thou attitude _still _got on my nerves. _I'd hate to be sick on your watch._

"Fullmetal," I said, "nobody asked you."

"Wh-what?"

"Oh, forget it." Again, the kid cringed. I took a deep breath, counted to ten, and tried again. "Listen, kid," I said, making sure to speak slowly and calmly, "I'm not going to hurt you, all right?"

He nodded.

"I'm just going to clean you up, so I need you to hold still for a minute. Is that understood?"

"Ye-yessir."

"Good. Now, this won't take long." I brushed the handkerchief over the boy's face, cleaning off snot and several months' worth of mud and grime.

And I could see my earlier assessment was correct; the kid was way too pale to be healthy, had such hollow cheeks that they could be used as cereal bowls, and as I finished cleaning his face, he started to shake.

"So-so c-c-c-c-old." His teeth sounded like someone doing a fast and tuneless tap dance.

"I can imagine. You and your dog should go home," I said. I put my handkerchief back in my pocket and turned to go. "You'll freeze to death out here, 'specially in those clothes."

"I-I-I would, s-s-s-sir, bu-but I-I've got no home."

That stopped me short. "What?"

"I-It's true, si-si-sir. Th-th-th-th-the landl-lo-lord threw me out in Ma-Ma-May."

_Oh, shit_. "What about your parents?"

"Mo-Mo-Mo-Mo-Mother's dead, s-s-sir."

"And your father?"

"Do-do-do-don't know, s-s-sir."

_Double shit_. "Well, you've gotta be staying somewhere, right?" There's no way someone would leave a little kid to fend for himself on the streets of Ishval, right?

Right?

"Ju-ju-just in the al-al-al-al-alleys, sir – Oh!" The kid's fingers slipped and the sack he was carrying fell out of his hands. He leant forward to pick it up – and kept going.

"Holy damn!" I managed to grab the kid before he hit the pavement, grabbed his chin, and pulled his head up so I could look at his face. He looked dazed, and his skin was ice cold. His lips had taken on a worrisome blueish tinge.

_Shit to the third power. _


End file.
